Difference between `.new()` and `torch.empty_like()`?

1

Suppose we have following code

a = torch.randn(3, 2)
b1 = a.new()
b2 = torch.empty_like(a)

what is the potential difference between b1 and b2 ?

2

a.new() will return a tensor of zero size (namely, no data in it) with the same type of a, while torch.empty_like(b1) will return a tensor with the same size and type of b1.
You may regard torch.empty_like(a) as a.new().resize_as_(a).